


The Jameses

by FaerieChild



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7852345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaerieChild/pseuds/FaerieChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through tragic circumstances, James Bond finds out the Quartermaster's real name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Jameses

**Author's Note:**

> This fic pulls together several ideas I have been meaning to turn into fic for some time. However, it was reading Of Names and Relations by FelicityWinchesterInTheTARDIS last night that gave me the impetus to go and write it all down.

On the landing of a brick built Victorian-era London flat, the Quartermaster of MI6 fiddled with a set of keys, unlocking the main old-fashioned lock as well as a YALE lock on the sturdy looking wooden door and then entered to disable the alarm on the other side.

James Bond followed the Quartermaster inside. It had been curiosity, more than anything, that had led to him taking up Q's invitation.

_'Bond? I do have a spare room, you know. If you need somewhere. For a couple of days.'_

Q had tilted his head slightly in that way of his which indicated he was asking a question without actually asking a question and Bond had known so little about the mysterious figure who now ran his life that he felt himself drawn to accept.

That was how he was now standing on wooden floorboards in jeans and a battered Barbour jacket and nothing else to his name. Bare floorboards, polished and varnished with two strategically placed small Persian style rugs place equidistant along the entrance hall. To one side was a small second-hand wooden table containing a posey of flowers, some stationery and an old-fashioned telephone.

Q dumped his keys on the table and locked the two locks and a deadbolt behind them.

“There's a spare set in the kitchen along with a key fob for the alarm. The windows are the weak point, really, but there's nothing sensitive here and I figure I'm as likely to be snatched on the tube as I am at home...”

Q was rambling. He was nervous. Bond saw him playing with his fingers in a manner that indicated his palms were almost certainly sweaty. Automatically James found himself scanning the flat. Five doors. Two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, toilet at the end of the hall.

“There's not a proper coat cupboard as such so feel free to use the pegs in the hall or the boiler cupboard in the kitchen if things need drying out. The bathroom's at the end of the hall there, the kitchen's on the right and the living room's just here...”

Q opened a door to a room with a sofa, an armchair and a small bay window. There was a sideboard, three bookcases and a television. It had a quaint, lived-in feel. Nothing modern. Everything was old, loved, second hand and often mended. 

“...and the spare room is...”

Q opened the door opposite to reveal a computer stockroom. Electronics, mother boards, soldering equipment, textbooks. “...perhaps I should have mentioned...”

Still rambling. Bond didn't care. All he wanted was to down a bottle of whisky and lay horizontal for twelve hours. “It's fine, Q.”

“I can clear it up a bit in the morning.”

“It's fine, Q,” Bond insisted.

“James,” Q said.

“Yes?” It was unusual for people to use his given name without Bond giving them permission first. Bond found himself rather amused by the idea, it felt oddly intimate. He found himself smiling, slightly.

“No, I mean...” A blush rose to Q's cheeks. “My name. You can call me James when we're here. If you want.”

Well, that was a surprise.

“James Bond?”

“Thank God, no,” Q let out a little giggle to himself, imagining the confusion no doubt that that would cause at work. “I shouldn't really be telling you but,” Q shrugged.

“Who would I tell?” Bond asked.

“Quite.” A silence fell. Q paused, awkwardly, and then opened the other door and put his bag down and shrugged off his anorak to hang on the back of the door. “Tea, I think. I probably have something alcoholic somewhere in the living room if you want something stronger. Then dinner. I'll get you some clothes – I should have something that fits until you can go shopping or raid the storage facility.”

“Storage facility.”

Q pushed his glasses up his nose. “Your stuff. It's in storage. I think they made your flat a safe house, actually. Without a body half the criminal underworld refused to believe you were gone and no one was insane enough to attack where you lived. You can probably get it back if you kick up a fuss.”

“M...Mansfield told me they sold it.”

“Mansfield was pissed you left us all in the lurch.”

Grief overwhelmed Bond. She had ordered the shot and now she was dead and he wasn't. The semantics mattered little now.

Q – James – turned away from Bond, neither of them comfortable displaying emotion in front of the other quite yet. A sniffle sounded. “I was going to make some tea, wasn't I?”

Bond let Q wander into the kitchen and made his own way into the living room. There were photographs on the mantle, one an aged photograph of young couple on their wedding day. One of a boy with his mother, another of the same boy with a strikingly similar girl.

Q's family.

Mansfields all.

James Mansfield.

 

The door opened and Q stood there. He opened his mouth and then shrugged and then broke down, collapsing where he stood as James rushed to him. He held him and lowered them both to the ground, his own grief taking a back seat to the utter heart-rending abyss of losing a parent.

Some time later an electric kettle clicked off in the kitchen but Bond ignored it and continued to hold Q until he cried himself to sleep. “I'm sorry,” Bond carded fingers through Q's hair and kissed his head with the soothing pecks of someone trying to comfort. “I'm sorry I couldn't save her.”

Once Q was out, Bond lifted him bodily and carried him through to the bedroom. He took off the man's shoes, socks and trousers. The cardigan, shirt and tie went next and left him in boxer briefs and a vest. 

They didn't sleep together that night, but Q wouldn't let go of James's hand. When Bond finally prised away Q's grip he went to find the alcohol and poured himself three glasses of rum. The kitchen revealed a fridge with a tupperware box full of stew and a post it note – EAT SOMETHING! – MUM X. Bond left the stew and found a tin of tuna which he used to throw together a pasta bake. He left a bowl of it by Q's bedside in case he woke up and stripped naked to collapse in his own bed.

James woke up sharply with a small furry creature trying to smother him in his sleep. Once he'd prised the furball off his face he worked out it was in fact a cat and that said cat would like food now, please. Still naked James tiptoed across the lethal detritus of small electronic parts and – was that lego? - to the kitchen. The cat food sat behind the door and Bond emptied some into the bowl under the window and replenished the water. He boiled the kettle and rifled through the cupboards for coffee and tea. Earl grey seemed to be the only tea in the cupboard so Bond made his best guess at the correct amount of lemon and honey and carried it through to Q's bedroom where he placed the mug on the bedside cabinet and went to search through Q's chest of drawers for some clean underwear. He found some trunks and a t-shirt that would fit and pulled them on. Bond turned around to find a pair of eyes peering out from under the duvet that was pulled up to Q's nose.

“Pity. I was rather enjoying the view.”

“Morning,” Bond searched Q's eyes. They weren't bloodshot at least. That was something.

“You made me tea.”

“I did.”

Q looked like he might cry again. Bond stepped over and ruffled Q's hair. “How about I make some breakfast?”

“Will you bring it through naked?” Q asked eagerly.

Bond chuckled and shook his head. “We'll see.”

Ten minutes later they sat eating poached eggs on toast in Q's bed.

“Bisexual?” Bond asked.

Q shook his head. “Gay.” He stuffed another slice of toast into his mouth along with as much of the egg as he could manage. “Starving,” He mumbled through a full mouth.

“You didn't have dinner.”

It seemed to hit Q, then, his stomach turning as he remembered the events of the day before. Slowly he lowered the slice to his plate.

By his side Bond rested against the headboard.

“I can't believe she's gone,” Q muttered and this time when Q broke down James was ready with a warm arm and a shoulder to cry on. He knew what Q meant.

 

Bond helped Q arrange the funeral. His sister was in the United States and wouldn't make it home, so it was up to Q and the Service. Now that Bond was in his life and his home Q seemed to gravitate towards him, like the cat that lived in Q's flat gravitating towards the humans that came home to feed it every night. Bond found to his surprise that Q was easy company. He had little need for conversation except to say that he wouldn't mind if Bond wanted to stay a few more days because he didn't want to be alone yet. The detritus that Q attempted to wrangle into control led to Bond spending most of this time in the living room, even sleeping on the sofa on occasion instead of his bed. While shirking any social interaction or human touch at work, at home Q would smile at Bond in response to a touch on the arm or the back, he would snuggle up in front of the television physically moving Bond's arms around him. “You don't mind, do you?” Q would ask mildly as he proceeded to use Bond as a human pillow.

There had been a few nights where Bond yearned for release and went out on the pull, but he found after a while that he liked coming home to Q. They fit well together. A touch here. A cuddle there. Affectionate, in their own way.

Not that Bond would ever tell anyone.

What had started out as a way of helping each other through the grief of losing a woman they both looked up to as a mother in their own way, over time became something else. Bond would find Q looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Bond had noticed Q the first time they had met, his slim form and dark hair, the intelligent wit in his green eyes and the buttocks that filled those tailored trousers.

One night – no night in particular – the thoughtless brush of Bond's hand across Q's back as he stood at the cooker turned into Bond pressing Q up against the kitchen cupboards and kissing his face off which in turn led to them jerking each other off right there as the lamb curry threatened to dry out, forgotten on the left back ring.

They didn't talk about it, but the sex continued.

As Bond began his search for a flat, he found himself stopping at odd moments pondering the thoughts that came unbidden – wouldn't they be better with an open plan kitchen-living room? Would the second bedroom be big enough for Q's stuff? Somehow what had started off as a temporary arrangement had fluttered into the territory of becoming a thing.

One morning, a Friday, Q paused over their pan of poaching eggs and asked Bond if the two of them were exclusive. “It's not that I mind being exclusive, lots of men are, it's just...I would need to know.”

Bond kept his body language as casual as possible. He was wearing a polo shirt and casual trousers that had come out of storage. “I've never been very good at exclusive,” Bond replied.

Q looked relieved. “Well then, I probably won't be home tonight if that's ok?”

“Hot date?”

Q turned back to the poached eggs. “Thought I might go out to a club, actually.”

Behind him Bond stalked towards Q, pressing his front into Q's back and kissing his neck. Bond's hands went to Q's waist. His tongue came out. “How are you with threesomes?”

The memory of Q so thoroughly ruined and fucked would stay with Bond a long time and the aftercare Q needed was something Bond found he felt strictly possessive about. Almost as possessive as Q was reported to be with the comms equipment at the Q Branch end of James Bond's honeytrap missions.

They were a thing, Bond realised. Somehow, somewhere, he and Q had become an item. He might go out and find other company, or Q might, or they both might, but when it came down to it their lives fit together, they cared and looked after one another and Q was nothing more nor less than his companion and home.

Some months after The Skyfall Incident, James announced that he had found a flat he liked. Q's body language stilled. “I thought...”

Bond's arm went around Q, his lips making contact on Q's temple. “I need some place bigger.”

“I like it here.”

“I know.”

“I can't afford somwhere bigger, James. I can barely afford this.”

“Well, I can. The safe house occupants got moved. I have my old flat back in Chelsea. You'll have a bedroom there and you keep talking about getting another cat...” James paused. “...Of course, just because I officially need my own flat back doesn't mean I actually have to live there.” Bond's tone was casual. Q's response was not. He grabbed James in both hands and snogged him.

“I want to fuck you right here against the kitchen cabinets.”

Bond pecked him on the cheek. “After dinner, darling.”

 

It was Moneypenny that first said it at Bill Tanner's birthday drinks. “Are the Jameses coming?” She enquired to the collective pub as James Bond and James Mansfield arrived through the door. “Oh!” Moneypenny broke into a grin. “There you are!”

Later that night James Bond could be seen muttering darkly as he stirred their hot cocoa on the hob. “The Jameses. Since when have we been the bloody-”

Q nibbled a butter laden crumpet. “I think it's sweet actually.”

“She's threatening to visit the new flat.”

“Have you even hung the pictures yet?”

Bond shook his head. “I'm mostly using it for the thing your mother left me.”

A sad look came over Q's eyes for a moment. “You realise you're going to have to leave me for a while.”

Bond looked up sharply.

Q nibbled his crumpet. “You know very well how these people operate. You have to leave me and it has to look believable. You could even date someone else if you wanted.”

Bond stabbed at the hot chocolate with the whisk. “Maybe I don't want.”

“You fuck them often enough.”

“That's different and you know it.”

“It should probably be a woman,” Q continued.

“Q-” Bond threw down the whisk and whipped around to face him.

Q ignored Bond's posturing and pretended to pay great attention to an article in the New Scientist magazine that was laying on the kitchen table. “Just a thought.”

 

Watching James Bond drive away a few weeks later was the hardest thing Q ever did. It didn't matter that he was coming back. It didn't matter that James Bond had left the tattered remnants of his heart at Q's flat. It still felt like good bye. As he turned back to his work Q reminded himself that that was a good thing. That was what was needed. In order to have a future, any future, James Bond had to purge the last remnants of SPECTRE from his life. Dr Swann would tire of him because James Bond was clingy and – frankly - high maintenance. She would probably let James down gently and explain it wasn't him, it was her.

Q bent down over his workshop table one last time and reminded himself they would be alright: They were the Jameses.

~


End file.
